Midlands-born choreographer George Williamson talks about premiering his new ballet as part of a Birmingham Royal Ballet mixed programme...

In November last year, professional dance development programme Ballet Now announced the first team of choreographers and composers who would be creating new one-act ballets for the stage. Emerging talent George Williamson, from Worcestershire, was one of the choreographers chosen. His new ballet, Embrace, premieres this month.

Twenty-seven-year-old Williamson has danced and choreographed professionally all over the world since graduating from the English National Ballet School in 2010. During his training there, he won a succession of awards, and is fast becoming ‘one to watch’ in ballet circles.

His new production is essentially about disregarding who we’re expected to be and instead embracing who we are. In a world of patriarchy, Embrace explores the weight, grief and loneliness of ‘otherness’. Expressed through movement, this is a very personal project for Williamson. “I’ve never done a narrative work based on anything to do with myself before, but this way I can really tap into all of the different emotions and ideas in the piece.”

Embrace features a number of Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers who’re working with Williamson in between fulfilling their commitments to the company. “It’s been quite a long process, as rehearsals have been broken up around the dancers’ touring schedule. The ballet is finished, but we have to keep going over everything that we’ve been doing during the last four months.” 
Williamson won’t see his dancers again until one week before Embrace premieres in London, due to the fact that they’re touring in Japan.

Although Williamson’s CV is impressive, he’s never before been involved in such a collaborative process. “It’s new music, a completely new concept, story and designs.” 

On being given the Ballet Now opportunity, Williamson approached American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider to write the music, visiting her in the States. “I got to spend some time with Sarah out there, where we finalised the music and discussed all the finer details. I’ve loved working with her, and I’m really excited to hear the music with an orchestra for the first time.”

Amazingly, the first four weeks of rehearsal for Embrace were choreographed to no music at all. “We’d created a lot of material before we had the music, and because of this, we were able to try whatever we liked. Once you have the music, it sets final parameters, so it was actually a relief to finally have it; you can’t just keep creating endless amounts of movement.” 

Williamson usually works with music from the outset, but he’s enjoyed the collaborative nature of not initially having any. “We’ve been able to change our minds about the movement and music in rehearsal. When you dance in the studio, trying out ideas, the music that works in your head potentially doesn’t work with the dancers’ bodies. I was able to feed that back to Sarah, and she would then edit or adjust the music, which is the true sense of collaboration.” 

An additional challenge was that the composer had never worked with ballet before, so Williamson had to explain a lot along the way. “The thing that attracted me so much to Sarah’s work was that she shows a strong sense of ‘story’ in her music. I knew she would be really good at facilitating the narrative and making sure that everything had its time and place.” 

Williamson is no stranger to creating new ballets, so does he prefer this to reinventing existing material? “Yes, definitely. I really love creating. I want to be a choreographer who creates stories that relate to the world we live in now; creating movement that’s exciting, new and challenging for the dancers. At the same time, I want to make stories that are challenging and interesting for the audience.”

Williamson feels that development programmes like Ballet Now are incredibly important in today’s industry. “It’s an amazing opportunity, to be trusted to build a show to whatever you want it to be. It’s allowing me to be quite brave in what I’m doing. This is developing me as a choreographer and therefore developing everyone around me as well.”

Being brought up fairly local to Birmingham, Williamson attended Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Junior Associates when he was younger, and also performed in The Nutcracker as a child. “When I went to Elmhurst School, we would go and watch the Birmingham Royal Ballet company, so it feels quite surreal to now be working with them!”

The best moment for Williamson will undoubtedly be seeing all of the elements of his ballet coming together on stage. “Hearing the music, seeing the set design, the lights and costume; that’s ultimately what I’ve been working on for the last year, so it will feel really special.”

Embrace is part of the Polarity & Proximity mixed programme being presented at Sadlers Wells, London, from Fri 15 to Sun 17 June. It then shows at Birmingham Hippodrome from Wed 20 to Sat 23 June.